The 12 amp hour 6 volt SLAs I had ran my Warspite from 2004 until this year. I got a lot of battles out of them until they went bad. SLA's power curve drops slowly over time. NIMH stays at the same voltage then drops off very fast. I a battle you will not notice that you're slowing down and losing voltage with SLAs. With a Nimh you are suddenly dead in the water. But that takes a long time with both types. If you have enough power in your ship. When you make your own pack you do solder the tabs togther. 5 cells makes 6 volts. Dave's ID did have just a little bit of freeboard. If you go SLAs you just have to make the total weight of the ship the same as Dave's. Dave how much did your ship weigh?
Yes you do, but keep in mind you need to use connecting bars and unless you are good at Soldering I would not do it. You can actually ruin a battery if you add too much heat to one.
She does float a bit low in the water. I marked mine at 23.5lbs and she came out at 1 7/16" at the bow and 3/4" at the stern when floated. I'll likely try to bring the bow up a little more. BTW, it is very easy to take out the extra bit that got molded into the bow. http://picasaweb.google.com/iunnrais/IronDuke?authkey=Gv1sRgCMe-8pHknfbTXg&feat=directlink
Would something like this work: http://www.batteryspace.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=1158 It says it has 5 Ah (??) of capacity at 1.2v. Couldn't I just make a single pack of 5 of those to power the entire ship?
At Nats, it weighed 24.6 pounds. But would be better if it dropped a pound or so I think. But it was harder to hit sitting low in the water like it was. But it does look like a smaller Nagato siting low like it was. It takes water over the bow alot, I found that out to my detriment at its first battle in Savannah, it sank just about every battle taking on water over the bow and stern, due to the poor deck seal, and the pump that refused to quit clogging up. By Nats I had it all figured out, and it did much better.
I saw one at the IRCWCC NATS and it looked great. Very hard to hit with how low it sat in the water. Good ship. The hull looks good
Here is a fantastic deal on D, 10 amp cells on ebay. Where I got most of my batteries. 20 cells with tabs, for $99. Thats the best price I have ever seen on these cells. You can make up 4, 6v packs. Only 22 hours left on them at that price. http://cgi.ebay.com/20-pcs-of-D-Size-10000mAh-NiMH-Battery-Flat-Top-w-Tab_W0QQitemZ390048787667QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item5ad0b82cd3&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14.l1262
When the cells are combined in series, do the five cells together have 10 Ah of capacity, or would they have the combined power of 25 Ah?
Depends on the cell type.. but hypothetically if 5 1.2v 10000 mah cells were combined in series it would be a 6v 10000mah pack. To get 20000 mah you need to make a second pack of 5 1.2v 10000 mah cells in series. Then take the two packs and combine them in parrallel if I remember correctly to get your 20 ah.
I finally figured out how to get the pictures off our camera. Here is the subdeck, glued in and sealed with west system. I like the way the "planking" turned out, but it isn't as smooth as I wanted it. I'm waiting to cut out the main windows for last, to make it easier to balance all the hardware in there, I have already cut out the small ones that go on the casemates. Since I took the picture I have also installed the drive motors and gear boxes. Here are the screws and rudders, I was able to get them pretty close together (on the second try!) This is about as far as I have gotten on the superstructure. My plan is to hollow these out to save weight, then maybe build the upper superstructure with ABS or 1/8" plywood.
I built the conning tower, and am working on the tripod mast, but the other day my last saw blade broke, so it will have to wait until I can get back to the hardware store.
Here is the railing I made for the conning tower. The picture is kind of blurry, but it is made of wire soldered together, and solidified with CA. It should look better once I glass over the sides. Here is what she looks like so far. The batteries came today, they are the 10 Ah NimH's. I have 20 cells, but I don't actually know how to make them into a pack. Do you just solder them together in series (they have tabs) then tape over the pack?
"Do you just solder them together in series (they have tabs) then tape over the pack?" That's pretty much it. I don't tape over them. I put heat shrink over them. Make sure you have a good soldering iron. Putting too mush heat on the cel is very bad. You want pretin each tabe, then heat them fast when putting them together.
Localy I get it at Axeman Surplus Store. They have all kinds of misc electronics junk. There should be a Surplus Store in your area like it. I think a place like Radio Shack would have it. But you'd pay a lot more for it. I don't think Home Depot or Lowes has it. Otherwise the web will have some on a site. You need pretty big stuff. I think I had 4" or 5"
Do you mean each heatshrink each cell individually, like with the tube type, or make a case out of it, like you see on the store bought packs?
